After meeting with President Putin, President Trump imposes sanctions on Russian oil companies
President Donald Trump has imposed sanctions on Russian oil companies Rosneft and Lukoil after talks with President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine failed.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Russian officials gave a cautious reaction to President Donald Trump’s proposal to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.
In a speech on the evening of November 20, President Zelensky said that U.S. military officials currently stationed in Ukraine had presented a “vision” for securing a peace deal, and that Ukraine was carefully considering the proposal.
“From the first days of the war, we have supported a very simple position: Ukraine needs peace. Real peace, a peace that cannot be broken by a third invasion,” Zelensky said, adding that he would meet with Trump in the coming days.
In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov downplayed the effort, saying it was unclear whether Zelensky’s government was willing to negotiate with Russia under Trump’s plan.
“No talks are currently underway. Of course, there are contacts, but there is no process that can be called consultations,” Peskov wrote on his Telegram channel on November 21.
The leaked draft plan calls for Ukraine to abandon areas of eastern Ukraine that it still controls, recognize the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea as Russian territory, reduce the size of its military, and pledge not to join the NATO military alliance. Ukraine has repeatedly insisted that all of these Russian demands are a “red line that must not be crossed.”
Russia started the war in Ukraine in 2014, occupying Crimea. In 2022, a full-scale invasion of Ukraine began. Russia currently controls about 20 percent of Ukraine’s territory.
An estimated 3.5 million Ukrainians live under Russian occupation.
The Institute for the Study of War, a US-based military affairs institute, assessed that the peace plan contains no clauses for Russia to make concessions. “The ISW continues to assess that accepting Russia’s demands would create the conditions for a new Russian invasion of Ukraine,” the institute said.
The White House said the plan was developed with direct input from Russia and Ukraine.
But Rustem Umerov, senior adviser to President Zelenskiy, who was cited by Axios as speaking with Trump special envoy Steve Witkov about the proposal, said Ukraine was only involved at a “technical” level.
Umerov said he did not give any assessment of whether the plan would be accepted by Ukraine.
